


becoming Beth

by mazabm



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Aliens, Beth Leaves, Character Study, Clones, Fluid Sexuality, Mid-life Crisis, written before Season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-01-13 16:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21164870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazabm/pseuds/mazabm
Summary: She is Beth; she is not the clone.There is a Beth in space and there is a Beth near Seattle.  They are both Beth until they aren't.





	becoming Beth

She is Beth; she is not the clone. 

There is a Beth in Paris. 

“B-be safe out there, kid.” Her dad says before he sends her to her destination. She doesn’t try to hug him, he doesn’t try to hug her, it’s more like a salute that happens. A soft acknowledgment that they are the same in everything, even this. Her last glimpse is of him turning away from the portal as it closes, flask in hand. 

Beth drinks wine while leaning her head on the shoulder of a man 10 years younger than her who sits next to her at a bar. 

This Beth leans in close to a woman in front of her, pretty pink lips in front of hers, breathes in her cigarette smoke. This is not her first time, here. 

It is with them; the woman is Isabelle or Chole or something, and the man, she doesn’t even think he said his name, but he responds to her even as he throws back his drink. 

“Come on, Liz,” The way the college nickname rolls off her tongue with the French accent, makes Beth smile, it reminds her of sitting in class, dreaming of what could never be. “Dance with me.” 

She’s not drunk anymore, but she’s pushing a line past tipsy, she can tell from her own giggling. Since she left (her life), the bitterness that would cause her drinking has lessened. It must be the lack of her father, the lack of Jerry, the lack of responsibility. 

She feels almost giddy in this French bar, among beautiful French people, who look at her and smile, not mockingly but in a way in which they know more than her, and it doesn’t cause her to feel insecure. 

She has picked up a few words here and there of the language. “Divorcée,” she says when they ask her for her story. No one often asks for more after that, they don’t have to, that’s all they wanted to know. They can tell when a woman is trying for a new start. 

She learns from them, like the words for more wine, as a pretty leg slides up her thigh. She learns the word ‘please’ in bed, underneath a man much larger than Jerry. She gets by like a tourist in the middle of a mid-life crisis, which she guesses she’s in the middle of. 

No one really asks her where she’s from, they hear “Américain”, see the blonde hair and ringless finger and they think they know her. She lets them, she gets what she needs that way. And what does she need but the touch of someone’s hand, pulling someone close, she needs, wants so much? 

She needs to know who she is most of all, but even in this tiny Paris’s club she doesn’t feel like she knows, she feels like a stranger in her own body. 

“Do you want to come back to my place?” The stranger says into her ear. This Beth nods. 

She thinks of Summer, wonders if she has what she needs to graduate. 

She is Beth; she is not a clone.

There is a Beth near Seattle. She stays with her kids, reunites with her husband, loves her father. Loves her father, who abandoned her and her mother when they needed him most, but he came back and he loves her and he finally supports her, supports their family, Jerry included. She loves her father, looks up to him, thinks about him holding a gun to her head for not being the real Beth and get chills. She hugs him harder. He can’t kill her if he loves her back 

She works with horses, she’s a vet, she’s not a surgeon with a million parrots, she’s a horse doctor with two kids, a husband, a picket fence, a loving father, had a dog. She has everything that regular people should want. 

“Mom, are you crying?” Summer was always so perceptive. 

She should be happy. She is, she laughs more; she smiles more. She hugs her children, their family doesn’t do that, didn’t do that before. Maybe that’s why her children are stiff in arms, almost like they’ve forgotten how to show affection. Her children, whose eyes are so much older than their bodies. She loves them so much; they are the best things to come out of her. She wants to see them succeed, go where she failed. Summer, who might be the only one in this family with a better future than she ever would have thought, and Morty, whose adventures with Rick have allowed him to see outside their world. She bets their world feels small now, feels almost claustrophobic, because when you have the whole universe, why would you want to stay on earth? 

“I’m fine.” She tells Summer, and the girl reluctantly leaves her. She makes eye contact with Rick, who says nothing. 

Her father watches her, watching him, analyzing her for weaknesses. She’s like him, she knows, smart, but she did something he didn’t and she almost wants to brag. She didn’t abandon her family, she stayed, she’s dealing with the consequences of her actions (her kids are not consequences, maybe side effects, she’s not really sure what sounds better) but she has no room in her for bitterness anymore, she chose this! And that’s what she tells herself every day at work, every night laying next to Jerry, she chose this life and she has to live it. 

She wonders though what it would be like to be anywhere else but here. 

She is Beth; she is not a clone. 

There is Beth who has traveled all over Europe, who walks into bars and has men buy her drinks, who she lets take her to their places. She’s kissed women and let them take her home. Not some vet anymore, she’s just another one of the women, that walks into places and on the arms of beautiful people. 

It helps that she’s clever and her language skills have gotten so much better. No longer like a toddler, she can hold her own, walk into a room and know what’s happening. She can pull her own from the room too, that’s how she got him after all.

“Are you running away Liz?” And the Belgium accent holds the z just a little too long. Maybe in the quest to find herself, she should stop telling people a name that doesn’t fit. 

“Of course not.” She says. “I’m here aren’t I?” She’s on his lap and she would like for him to focus on her, not her past, but the physical her, she tries to remember his name, it was something very white like an Adam or Nathan. 

“But you’re not staying,” He asks, and she laughs. She doesn’t stay anywhere not for too long, she tries not to go back if she can help it either. It’s easier that way, no way to get attached. 

“I don’t live here.” She whispers. She doesn’t live anywhere now really, just nights in places she’s not always sure about. 

“Where is home?” He says, and he shifts beneath her when she bites her lip because she doesn’t know, isn’t sure. “It’s okay Liz.” He says, his soft rumbling voice supposed to be comforting her, it’s not. He pities her and she can’t have that. His voice catches when she grinds down on him and he stops asking her questions. 

Europe’s nice. It’s nice, it’s in Italy that she meets her. 

She’s beautiful with brown hair, warm eyes that glow in the dark. Her accent is hard to place, but she holds Beth’s hand in the dark when Beth sobs about how guilty she feels for abandoning her children. She wipes her tears, hands rough like leather, kisses her with the softest lips, sharp teeth accidentally pricking her where they separate.

“Do you want to go somewhere?” And that’s how she ends up here, in a spaceship watching Earth from just outside the bubble. She looks down on it and wonders why people don’t just unite, it’s not that hard. 

“You’re… uh, species is very complicated.” The woman(?) tells her. “Full of suffering and guilt.” 

“The whole universe is full of suffering.” Beth points out.

“Yes, but you humans hold it particularly well. Your small bodies so full of pain.”

“I wasn’t always like this,” Beth says, defensive, loud in this ship.

“Do you remember what that was like?” Her green eyes (and they are full of green no pupils, she should have been more observant) are soft, sad for her. 

“Not really,” Beth admits. Why lie?

She is Beth; she is not a clone. 

This Beth, near Seattle, puts her foot down after Morty comes back from an adventure with Rick with a scar across his cheek. She grips her son’s face tightly looking for other bruises and scars she may have missed. 

“You can’t do this anymore Rick.” She says, steel in her voice. Her dad rolls her eyes, and she grips Morty’s face tighter, the boy making a pained sound in the back of his throat. “I’m serious.”

“I know you are,” Rick says back, and there is that look again like he’s waiting for her to snap. She won’t give him the benefit of the doubt and simply holds his gaze. Seconds pass Morty squirms. Rick scoffs and looks away. “I’ll pull back for a bit.” He says and both Morty and Beth blink in surprise, and she lets the boy go and he stumbles back. 

“Mom, it’s not that big of a deal!” He says. Neither she nor Rick responds to him and he huffs and storms off. A delightfully teenage response to not getting what he wants and Beth finds herself laughing. When was the last time she had seen Morty act like a child? 

She is Beth; she is not a clone.

There is a Beth in Europe headed to space!! She doesn’t go with Ariono that day, no she sees the beautiful women off into the universe but once she meets one alien, she meets another and another and one thing leads to another. Carlos (not his real name of course), brings his injured friend to her once (whose anatomy quite resembles a horse) and she’s able to help and it spreads from there. 

Aliens and humans alike ask for her help and she gives it, learning as she does.

She stays in London, for all its rain and helping the people who come to her.

“Come with me,” Andras tells her. “You could do more work out there.” 

“I don’t know,” she starts.

“You got something better to do?” She wanted to be back by Summer’s graduation, she thinks. She owes it to the girl.

“Maybe,” She says. 

“I know some people, just talk to them and then decide, Beth.” And that was bad, letting these people know her real name, know _ her _was bad.

“Okay.” She says.

“We go to war-torn planets and do what we can.” They go by Nicolai but everything about them from the rainbow dots on their body, to the long taloned fingers, scream _ Alien. _

“The Federation,” Beth says, surprised at the fear in her voice. The alien looks at her with curiosity.

“Yeah, when they collapsed they threw a bunch of systems into disarray. They still got some sects here and there but nothing that we can’t handle. Won’t lie to you, It’s hard work, but it’s good work.” 

Beth looks from Nicolai to Andras and licks her lips. 

“The question is, you in?” 

There is a Beth, near Seattle, who might still hate her husband. 

And that’s not good.

She doesn’t hate Jerry, she’ll say out loud, she’ll say,

“This thing you’re doing is really frustrating me and it’s making me want to kill you.” Okay, she doesn’t say that either but being away from Jerry and being back with him hasn’t made what made her hate him in the first place fade. 

She can’t let him go because she needs him to remind her of who she is because she’s not a clone, she’s Beth. At least that’s what she tells herself when she rolls over and puts her back to him to face the wall, wincing when he puts his arms over her shoulders. 

Sometimes she thinks about the other Beth, the one that wanted to divorce this man, thinks about how even that wasn’t enough for her, thinks isn’t she glad that Beth doesn’t exist because she stayed and tried again for her sake (not her children, she did it for her and her sanity, because she loves him) 

As she watches him, look for another job he’s under-qualified for, she wonders was it worth it.

“Why did I leave him?” She asks herself in the mirror, wondering if the answer will float back up. 

A familiar voice in her head says “Be a good mother, that’s all you have to do, be a good mother, be a good Beth.”

What is a good Beth? She doesn’t drink much anymore; the taste is too bitter in her mouth; she paces her kitchen at night, wanting something to soothe her chest. She’s not going through shakes or withdrawal or anything like that. Maybe she should be? 

Rick offers her his flask, she turns him down. 

There is now a Beth in space! Helping people where she can. She sees many people die though, civil war no matter where it is, is bloody and sad and she holds more than one dying child in her arms. 

Her crew, she calls them Doctors Without Borders in her head, they call themselves “Tuhinga o Mua” a language older than the existence of any society on Earth.

“It translates directly to uh, saviors of liberty.” They push a translator into her ear early into her journey but they still teach her words of their species and her human tongue tries to match them. 

She learns that Nicolai is a Chazamon, his planet lit by two suns. There are the twin pilots Zocobi and Brid who blink in sync with each other. Arian, who reminds her of a boy she once liked with his bright brown eyes and a mean smile. There is Lesha, another human who watched war tear apart her country. 

They travel across the galaxy, to planets ripped apart by war and destruction and they help people. Nicolai is a good teacher and she learns more about alien anatomy than she thought possible. They never stay for too long, bouncing from place to place. She knows it so they don’t get attached to one place when a galaxy needs their help but she comes to think about Heron’s red sands and the red blood of their children, she thinks about the Oakes people whose corrupt government kills them without impunity. She thinks about Earth, about how she probably should have stayed there with all the people who need help. 

Beth in Seattle helps summer with her homework and gets Morty a tutor that isn’t Rick. She avoids her husband who doesn’t understand, who thought Rick was the only thing standing in their way of happiness and who desperately wants Beth to be with him. 

A complete Beth once was certain that leaving him would fix things, and she left and nothing was fixed. She stopped going to therapy because the therapist reminded her she was too much like her father and she hates that now she knows where her line is compared to his and she doesn’t feel better for it! 

Why doesn’t she feel whole yet?!

What’s wrong with her?!

“Look,” Rick says in her head. You wanted to _ leave _ for a reason, sweetie.” And she hates that, hates that he still tries to pretend as if he loves her even when they both know it doesn’t work anymore.

“Look,” Jerry says. “I don’t know what’s going on but you can talk to me, Beth.” And it must be bad, it must be awful if Jerry can tell something is wrong. 

“Mom,” Summer starts. “Can we talk?” And her heart stops, Summers 18th birthday is soon, Beth worries that the pregnancy curse (because that’s what it is) will hit her too.

“You’re not pregnant are you?” Beth asks, desperately wishing she could stomach something to drink.

“What? No!” Summer says I’m not like you, going unspoken. “No, I was going to ask for your help with something.”

“Of course.” She says, and she doesn’t quite know what to do with the look that Summer gives her, hopeful and cautious at the same time. 

The Beth in Space is doing well, between the planets and moons and stars she’s seen, the people she’s met, she no longer feels like Beth, daughter, divorcée, Americana, runaway, she feels like Elizabeth, a doctor, a savior of liberty. 

What they’re doing is very noble, very heroic. She doesn’t feel so empty inside even as she falls asleep to the color of blood painted on her eyelids, even though she can’t get the sounds of screams out of her head. When they stop at a bar in the middle of the Milky Way, she doesn’t acknowledge her hand shaking as she sips her drink. 

War is never easy anywhere, and for all the desensitization of their family sometimes Beth can’t stomach it. 

It’s in the bar she sees him. Throwing her drink back, listening out (hypervigilance bred into her) when she hears his name first. 

“RICK!” It comes through so clearly through her translator that Beth almost spits her drink out. 

“Fuck,” she says, turning in her seat and yep, there he is, apparently the only fucking Rick in the galaxy, her father, arguing with someone and when he sees her, his eyes widen. 

“What are _ you _doing here?” He asks, swooping down on her like a hawk.

“My crew,” she starts, watching Nicolai move towards her. “here to refuel.” 

“On this side of the galaxy?” And his eyes narrow. “What are _ you _ doing?” She debates her answer, wants to say helping people, wants to say nothing _ you’ll _ care about, wants to say it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t say any of that, just kinda shrugs and watches Rick hate that. 

“Liz is one of us,” Nicolai says, eyeing Rick with suspicion. 

“This is my dad.” Beth says as Rick says “Huh, really?”

“You coming back with us?” Nicolai asks her, ignoring Rick and Beth relishes the feeling that gives her. 

“Yeah, give me a second, I have to finish this.”

Rick looks the same which is telling because he’s always looked like this in her head, but now he’s older, sadder looking, there is a line of frustration that runs on his face. 

“How have you been?” She asks, thinking it sounds better than her blurting out “Are the kids okay?” thinks she doesn’t really want to know the answer to that. 

“No fucking small talk” He throws back his drink “What do you want, Beth?” 

“What day is it, on Earth?” She finally asks, and she watches his face scrunch up. Maybe, trying to find the trick. 

“It’s almost April.” He says, and she laughs just a little, Summer would graduate soon. He just looks at her. She wonders what surprises him most, the scar that now runs along her chin, her blonde hair, cut short. She doesn’t put it past him to know that she’s only been drinking the same drink all night, that she’s saved so many people and lost so many people and it’s only been a few months. 

She thinks, she has changed a lot, and he looks the same. 

She knows she could ask him to take her back to her home, to her kids, could get him to turn off the clone that’s replaced her but she also knows it wouldn’t work. She doesn’t fit there anymore. 

“I wanna go back.” She says, surprising herself, surprising him. “To see Summer graduate, but I’m not staying. Can you help me?” He snorts, digs in his pockets and places what looks like a watch on the table.

“Yeah, mija, I can.” 

There is a Beth in Seattle at her daughter’s graduation. 

Her daughter isn’t worried about if anyone can see her pregnant belly under her gown, she isn’t looking her shoulder at a boy who proposed to her two days before. She doesn’t ask her college for a deferment because she has to give birth. She’s going to college, far away from them (okay, three states away). She survived them and something inside of Beth is cracking, tears stream down her face. 

This is fucked, Beth didn’t spend her entire life repressing her emotions just to have a breakdown at her daughter’s graduation. 

The principal gives a weak speech and Beth tunes him out (their family may have been responsible for the old one dying; she doesn’t really think about it). And then Summer walks across the stage and Beth feels like a real mother, feels like she may not be such a fuck-up with after all, that she didn’t wait till it was too late to rebuild her relationship with her family outside of Rick. It’s a good feeling, one she didn’t know she needed.

Summer hugs them all afterward, long sincere hugs and Beth holds her tight. She’s never had to worry about being an empty nester because that’s what she thought she wanted and now the thought of Summer’s room being empty, of her being by herself when everyone else left made her chest tighten. But that’s something she doesn’t have to worry about for a while. 

Everyone in their family comes, Jerry’s parents, her friends from work who saw Summer grow up, Rick dips in and out, Morty doesn’t leave his sister’s side. 

Beth exhales. 

She walks outside, to get out of the sounds in the house, stares at the stars and wonders, and 

“Hey.” Her heart stops. 

There is a woman with short blonde hair, a scar running alongside her cheek, she’s wearing sunglasses but there is something about her, something familiar. They almost look like they could be sisters. 

The lady takes off her sunglasses and Beth loses the ability to breathe. 

“Are you here to kill me? For taking your spot? Is he gonna,” There is panic in her voice. 

“No!” The other woman says, she seems amused with Beth’s reaction. “No, I just wanted to talk.” 

“About what?! You left!”_ I stayed, I’m real. _She wants to say, wants to scream. 

“I did.” The woman says, “And you’re allowed to hate me for that, hate me for showing back up, ruining your delusion.”

“I knew.” Beth (the clone) says. “I knew he lied to me, he so proud of you. He had infinite daughters why would he try to”

“Stop his daughter from shooting herself in the head? Stop her from getting back with a man she hates?”

“I love Jerry,” Beth says. 

“Mm-hmm, I’m sure you do.” She says. “I’m not here to fight with you Beth, or take away your life.”

“You mean _your _life,” The other Beth shakes her head in response.

“I was just here to see off Summer, to see her doing what neither of us did, to see it with my own eyes.”

“She’s not like us, you,” Beth says 

“She is more alike than you think, benefited from not having Rick as a father, benefited from you being here.” 

“She would have been fine.” 

“Yeah, but she needed a good mother, a good Beth.” Be a good mother, Be a good Beth, that voice, that mantra, 

“It’s you, it’s been you this whole time.”

There is a Beth in Seattle at her daughter’s graduation. 

She stands in the back, cheers when they call Summer’s name, leaves before it’s over. She walks into her old job at the horse hospital, just stands in the lobby until the lady at reception asks if she needs anything. 

She walks through restaurants, and grocery stores, even the old courthouse where she married Jerry and later dropped the divorce papers. She just walks around the town and sees people, and she knew and people she didn’t, she stands by her mother’s grave for what feels like hours but must have been minutes. And then she ends up in the garage where Rick is sitting, waiting for her. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be with them?”

“Left early.” He says, before throwing back his flask, he offers it to her, she turns it down. 

“I want to see her.”

“Bad idea, she already has issues.” What Beth didn’t. “I’m sure I can find a universe.” He says as if she had said that aloud. She shrugs. 

“Fine, fuck up your clone.” He says. “What do I care? Just don’t let Morty see you, I promised him she was the real thing.” She wondered what must have happened for Rick to have to promise Morty his mother didn’t leave him or better yet that he didn’t help her. 

“Summer?” She asks.

“She knows, but don’t go rubbing it in her face.” She turns. “Beth!”

Summer startles seeing her in the room but she doesn’t scream out, she seems to put it together really fast. 

“Are you my real mom?” Beth kinda shrugs from where she leans on the window. 

“Would you rather I told you I was from an alternative universe who had never had you, who wanted to see how wonderful the life and the daughter I could have had are?”

“Would that make you feel better if it were true?”

“Yeah,” Beth says. “It would.” 

“What do you want,” she pauses. “Mom?” 

“To hug you,” Beth says. “I am so proud of you.” 

Summer flies into her arms, gripping her tight. Beth thinks about how she hugged Rick when he came back in their lives and tries not to read too much into it. She thinks she should say sorry; she doesn’t.

“Am I going to see you again?” Summer asked once they’ve broken apart and something inside of Beth shatters. 

“I’m not sure,” She says and the girl nods. 

“Can I call you? She looks at the watch Rick gave her and back at her.

“I’m not sure but I’ll figure it out so you can.” And Summer smiles. 

“Cool.”

“Cool.” Beth echos. 

“Summer! Your grandparents are here, come down!” She hears the other Beth call out and Summer looks at her with wide eyes. 

“Don’t tell them I was here, please.” Summer nods. 

“Okay. Bye, mom.” She says, heading towards the door. 

“Summer!” She says before the girl shuts the door. “I love you.” 

“Thank you.” She says to her clone. “For being a good Beth, for being a good mother and loving them.”

“So you’re not coming back?” There is something ragged in her voice, she stares at Beth like she doesn’t what to do. 

“No, it’s not my life anymore, it’s yours and you can do anything with it.” The clone throws her arms up.

“What does that mean?” And Beth (well Liz really, she hasn’t been called Beth by anyone but Rick in months) laughs. 

“It means go be happy, don’t feel you have to do anything but make yourself as happy as possible.” 

“I’m not leaving,” She says, clenching her jaw.

“You don’t have to, we’re not the same, you’re not me, Beth, you’re you.” 

“I am not the clone.” The other Beth says as if trying it out loud. 

“No,” Doctor Liz says, placing her hand on Beth’s cheek, a gentle smile on her face. “You’re Beth.” 

On Summer’s dresser, the morning she packs all her stuff into the car to head off to college in California, there is a note with neat writing with a phone number with the words I love you, beneath the numbers. 

Morty doesn’t know how to console a crying Summer, their Grandfather drags them both into his spaceship and they don’t talk about it. 

Beth sits in her kitchen, sipping wine for the first time in months, Jerry sits across from her sharing the bottle. 

Somewhere in space, they greet Liz back onto the spaceship, her crew elated to see her returned, she grins, she’s home. 

**Author's Note:**

> Been working on this since I binged all of Rick and Morty a few months ago, did a rewatch and decided to finish it before the new season came out.


End file.
